Two Zilla Gut Load

This product formerly known as ESU Gut Load; same product, different company (Zilla purchased ESU)

Feeding bugs and insects to your sugar gliders is just about the nicest thing you can do for them. In the wild, sugar glider diets are made up predominantly of insects in the warmer months when bugs are abundant. Feeding captive sugar gliders a diet that best assimilates the diet of free ranging gliders is important to their overall health and stimulation.

Commercially available live mealworms and crickets are often undernourished (canned insects are not). It is for this reason, we suggest gut loading your live insects for 48 hours prior to feeding the bugs to your sugar gliders. Zilla's Gut Load is a very good product used for this purpose. After all, you want your insects to be well fed before they are ... well ... fed.

Start by acquiring a "feeding" bin by either using a plastic aquarium (with lid) or a Tupperware type container with holes punched in the top. Make a bedding of bran (from the grocery or health food store) and a teaspoon of Zilla Gut Load. Add a small amount of Vionate for extra nutrition. On top of this bedding you will place pieces of carrots and apple if you are feeding mealworms, or slices of orange if you are feeding crickets. Do not place the feeding bin in the refrigerator while gut loading as the insects will not eat, defeating the purpose.

Zilla Gut Load Cricket and Insect Food provides feeder crickets and mealworms with a "supercharge" of carbohydrates, calcium and beneficial calories to make them an ideal food source for your sugar gliders.

Much of the nutritional value of a wild insect is found in the stomach content, or "gut load". Insectivore/omnivores, which is the class of animal sugar gliders fall into, rely just as much on the gut load of an insect for calories and nutrition as they do on the other parts of the insect.

Commercially raised feeder insects do not have access to the variety of vegetation found in the wild, and are often severely lacking in body weight, calories and nutrition. Furthermore, it is likely that the insects have not ingested any food for several days during transportation. It is therefore necessary to feed the feeder insects with Gut Load before they are fed to the gliders.